When This Moment Comes
by Juushika Redgrave
Summary: As the end of his relationship with Vegeta approaches, Goku looks back on their time together and what brought them to this point.


When This Moment Comes  
A DBZ One-Shot  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragonball Z. I hope this is rather obvious. I am its characters without permission. I am making no profit of any form.  
Warnings and notes: This fic was written for the Dragonball Z One-Shot Fanfic Contest 2003 (). We'll see if it wins anything…  
This story is a re-write of a piece called "Reality Check" written by April Vannatta (last know email address: the_lioness2000@yahoo.com). She gave me permission to rewrite it.  
It contains angst, yaoi, death, and generally dark subjects. You have been warned. I appreciate reviews (here or sent to swiftskyes@hotmail.com), be they critiques or a general good/bad word. Enjoy.  
Begun 8.24.01  
Completed 3.28.03  
  
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As you stand there, everything about you seems to be a challenge to me. The way you hold yourself so stiffly. The way you look at the empty countertop. The way you pretend you don't care. Every bit, all of it, is a silent dare, a challenge to me to be brave enough to talk to you. You are waiting for me to say something, but we both know that even although I've practiced this speech for hours, you will only snort and walk away at my first word.   
  
My first word would be "we" -- because that's the important thing and that's what's ending. I would say: We've been stupid, Vegeta. I've practiced this speech a hundred times. I know every world by heart. But it would be cut off without even a sentence said. You wouldn't listen.  
  
We've been stupid, Vegeta. I'm not stupid. You're not stupid. You're smart and you're clever -- everyone knows that. I'm the idiot, but I'm not so dumb that I don't think at all. This didn't happen because we're morons. It's just that somehow, we were stupid together and it happened and then it was too late for what had been done to be undone. We were hurting and we had no one to turn to but each other. It makes sense, but it was still stupid. We've screwed things up and even though neither of us regret it, we still need to make things right again. We can't let the chance pass by. We can't just forget. The world doesn't work that way.  
  
You're waiting for me to speak because you know I just found the final dragonball -- Soshinkyu, the four star -- and that the time has come to fix what we broke. You want me to say something to sum up these long months in one simple word so that you can hear it, know it, digest it, snort and walk away. You want me to find a way to end us and everything that we are in that one simple little word so that you can call Shenron and finish this. It can't be done, Vegeta. I tried. I've tried a thousand times, but it just can't be done. All that I can come up with is paragraphs and pages of practiced words to say to you, and you wouldn't let me say them.  
  
I hope you don't think I'm angry, because I'm not. I'm just a little worried and a little sad and really very scared.  
  
I know you want Bulma back. I know you want the mother of your children back, alive again, and you know that I want my wife returned to me too. There's no question about what we're going to do. We never talked about it, but both of us know what will happen because we both need it and both want it. It still hurts, though. Because these last few months have been wonderful. There have been times so perfect that I stopped reliving her death. For moments, I didn't even think about her, and it was just you and me, alone and together. You've been great. You've been amazing. You healed me, and I still don't know how. But we need to do this.  
  
As soon as I find the courage to talk I'll say, Vegeta, and my one word will be used up. I'll know that my prepared speech would be useless and I won't even try. I'll stay your name because it will be the only world that I will be able to think of. Then you'll turn around, walk past me, and then all of this will end. Eleven months of hating and then hurting and then holding will be gone as soon as the sky goes black and Shenron begins to uncoil.  
  
It's horrible of me to say it, but I'm glad that this took so long. I'm glad we had to wait for the dragonballs to become usable again after Goten's little wishes. I'm glad we had this time. It's selfish, but I've always wanted to really know you, to really understand you. I value every second we had together. We were stupid, maybe, but we never did anything wrong. We found love when we were broken and hurting. We filled the emptiness with each other, and I wouldn't trade that for the world.  
  
I would only trade it for her, but you already know that.  
  
I've missed Chichi so much. I want her back. She'll be as loud and as obnoxious as ever, I'm sure, but I can't wait to see her again -- even if she can read these last few months on my face, even if she figures it all out, even if she hates me for it. I feel like everything that has happened is written across my face, like you are so much a part of me now that you have stained my skin. I love you, but I fear that she may never be able to love me again because of it. But she is still my wife. She is still the mother of my children. She is still the woman that I love and she should never have died that way -- she didn't deserve it.  
  
She'll get a second chance. Maybe one day, we will too.  
  
I do love you, Vegeta, I really do. I never told you, but you knew. I love you, and I will always love you, because things like this don't fade. One day, after Bulma and Chichi have died natural deaths, maybe we can find each other again. We can mourn together and find comfort together and learn to love again together. We've done it once before and I know that we can do it again. I know it would work. But we'll have to wait until then, because accidents like that aren't natural deaths. Plane crashes don't count. Shenron can revive them.  
  
I want so badly to tell you these things. I wish that I could. I wish you would let me. I want to thank you for what you've done.  
  
Thank you. Thank you, a thousand times thank you.  
  
Thank you, Vegeta. Thank you for punching me when she died and taking my mind away from that pain. Thank you for making me move, because if I hadn't moved then I never would have moved again. I felt it, when she died. I felt the explosion. I felt the flames. I felt Chichi die -- that's why I stopped, that's why I froze when we were sparring. If you felt it too, you didn't let it show. Maybe you attacked me as I floated there, immobile, because you felt it and you were angry, furious at the loss of your wife. Maybe you only hated me for freezing. I don't know. You never told me, and I'll never ask. There's so much we haven't said.  
  
You and I know how it feels to die. We've experienced it before. But it's different, it's it, when the one person you love most it the world is the one that dies. It's more than the physical. The pain is deep down inside, too. It hurts your heart, I guess, more than dying does.   
  
Thank you for not hating my weakness when I came to you for comfort. You were the first person I talked to. That was the first time I left the house after she died. I needed someone who would know what I was going through, and I didn't think anyone else would understand. I knew you would.  
  
Thank you, Vegeta.  
  
Thank you for holding me when I cried. I didn't mean to cry, especially not in front of you, but even if I didn't want them, my tears didn't surprise me, not really. Yours did. You never cried for anyone but yourself, Vegeta, except for Bulma -- you cried for her. You love her just as much as I love Chichi. You knew the pain that I was going through because you were going through it too. We were so alike just then, Vegeta, so similar, grieving together and hurting in the same way.  
  
Thank you for that night. I wanted to thank you before, but you never gave me the chance. I needed to hold and to be held, the same way you did. I slept so well that night, feeling your body against mine and your skin under my hand. It didn't matter that we had collapsed on your kitchen floor, exhausted from mourning and crying and letting it all come out at last. It didn't matter how sad and broken and weak we both were. It wasn't the same as sharing a bed with Chichi, it was nothing like that, you had none of her softness and her roundness and her warmth, but you were alive and breathing and you touched me. You made me remember that life still went on and that I was allowed to hurt and to cry because I hurt.  
  
Thank you for showing me that even in the darkest, coldest times there is still flame. It was slow in coming. It took so long. We moved so slowly, the two of us, even though it was so simple by the end of it all, and touching you was as natural as breathing. It could have happened a lot faster, and then we would have had more time together. I wish I had been more direct. I'm sorry that I made you wait as long as I did. I was nervous. I didn't know what I was doing. Saiya-jin love is different from anything I've known before. Loving a male was alien to me. I was frightened. I had no idea what I was feeling.  
  
I was falling in love with you, Vegeta. Thank you for loving me back.  
  
When this is all over, spar with me again. Crush my bones to sand and I'll make you vomit blood and our wives will hate us -- but you and I will still be here, just like we always were, and nothing will be different but the memory of this time that we will both have. Until then, fight me, and we'll never talk about you and me and these four months of loving one another and sleeping together and recovering from pain in each other's arms.  
  
It's been almost a minute now, filled with my silence and your challenge. We can't put this off any longer. It wouldn't be right. We have to fix this.  
  
I finally find the courage to speak my word: your name. You snort and say, You found it. It's not a question, it's a statement, and you leave the room and I hurry after you and suddenly things are so cold between us. I expected they would be. Even without discussing it, we both knew exactly how this would happen.  
  
Don't forget, ok? Don't forget that I love you.  
  
When the sky is black you glow with Shenron's light. You are aflame, and beautiful, and I can't have you. Letting go hurts. I stand behind you, watching, thinking, trying to remember and move on at the same time. You speak to Shenron and still I'm silent.  
  
You can't hear these words; they are in my head. It doesn't matter, because when I said you name you knew them all, all of that in just three heavy syllables.  
  
Don't forget; for my sake, don't forget, and I'll hold on to it too. She is my world and my everything, but I'll miss you. I'll miss you, Vegeta, for a little while, for however long, until it can be you and me and us again.  
  
And then the wish is made, and this moment comes, and it has ended, and the time for thinking about this has passed. 


End file.
